Quality of life in men with involuntary childlessness: long-term follow-up

Abstract

We conducted a longitudinal cohort study on the quality of life of infertile male patients measured at baseline and after 5 years with a specific quality of life instrument for male patients who are involuntarily childless. It was distributed to patients who were seen at the andrology and gynaecology clinics for infertility diagnoses and treatment. At baseline (T1), 275 patients took part in the study. A subset of these patients (N = 133) had released two semen samples, and the results of the semen analysis had been communicated to them before they received the questionnaire. Semen quality of this subset was assessed according to WHO recommendations. After 5 years (T2), the questionnaires were mailed again and were sent back by N = 101 patients. No significant quality of life difference was found between the semen quality groups. After 5 years, an improvement was found for the dimensions 'desire for a child' [mean score 1.92 (T1) versus 1.72 (T2)] and 'gender identity' [mean score 1.56 (T1) versus 1.42 (T2)] while no change was found for 'partnership' and 'psychological well-being'. We did not find significant differences between patients who had fathered a child in the meantime and patients who did not become fathers.

Effects of medical causes, role concepts and treatment stages on quality of life in involuntary childless men

“…Overall, in line with Schanz et al . (), TLMK scores were moderate to low indicating that though some men report low quality of life, especially undergoing ART, the majority adjusts well to the circumstances of infertility.…”

Measurement and evaluation of quality of life and well-being in individuals having or having had fertility problems: a systematic review

“…A short description of the design of the studies, an overview of the quality-of-life and/or well-being instruments used and a summary of the studies' outcomes are presented in Table 1. In most countries only one or two studies were conducted, with the exception of Iran (six studies) [8][9][10]13,23,27], Germany (three studies) [22,28,31] and Turkey (three studies) [25,26,29]. Most studies had similar aims and objectives (to compare quality of life/wellbeing of individuals with fertility problems with quality of life/well-being of individuals without fertility problems).…”

“…Kowalcek et al [22] Disease-specific QoL and well-being instruments FertiQoL FertiQoL is a fertility-specific self-report questionnaire designed to assess QoL of infertile individuals [34] No Valsangkar et al [30] TLMK The TLMK is a fertility-specific instrument originally used to assess QoL in men with a desire for a child; it consists of items covering four areas: desire for a child and associated stress, gender identity, marital relationship and psychological well-being [35] No Schanz et al [28] QLQ-C30 The QLQ-C30 is designed to collect information on function, global health, QoL and symptoms in cancer patients; a higher global score indicates better QoL [17] Yes Hassanin et al [17] QoL: quality of life.…”

“…Applying the TLMK, Schanz et al [28] found that the quality-of-life scores over 5 years of involuntarily childless men had improved in the domains of desire for a child and gender identity, indicating that the negative impact of these domains had decreased. However, no differences in quality of life were found among those who had become fathers and those who remained childless.…”

“…Two studies found the opposite for either women or couples [16,25]. Eight studies found no overall evident relationship between infertility/ subfertility and quality of life or well-being [8,9,[18][19][20]22,28,31].…”